Area lawmakers want bipartisan pitch on economy

Parties have same focus but different agendas going into speech

Jan. 25, 2014

President Barack Obama / AP

Written by

Deirdre Shesgreen

Gannett

Different parties, different agendas

Top agenda items for the president and congressional Democrats:• Pushing a comprehensive overhaul of immigration policy through the House. • Getting an increase in the federal minimum wage from $7.25 per hour to $10.10 per hour. • Extending unemployment benefits that have lapsed for people out of work for more than 26 weeks. Top agenda items agenda for congressional Republicans:• Forcing the Obama administration to approve the Keystone XL Pipeline to carry oil from Canada across the U.S. • Pushing legislative changes to the Affordable Care Act and conducting oversight of the law’s implementation. • Granting the president authority to more quickly conclude trade agreements. Congress’ must-do list for 2014:• Passing spending bills to fund the government for fiscal year 2015. • Raising the debt ceiling before the U.S. Treasury hits its current borrowing limit. • Resolving talks about a new farm bill that would spell out agricultural and nutrition policies for the next five years.

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WASHINGTON — No matter where they fall on the political spectrum, Ohio lawmakers agree on what they’d like to hear from President Barack Obama in Tuesday’s State of the Union address.

Sen. Rob Portman, R-Ohio, said the State of the Union address is “a huge opportunity for (Obama) to engage with Congress and get some things done to help improve the economy.”

Rep. Brad Wenstrup, R-Columbia Tusculum, said he wants the president to deliver a candid assessment of country’s economic ills and talk about “what’s the plan to get people employed.”

But the harmony among Ohio lawmakers turns to cacophony when they delve into the details of how to improve an economy in which Ohio trails the nation in several measures.

Unemployment in Ohio was 7.4 percent in November compared with a national rate for the month of 7 percent. Ohio’s economy grew 2.2 percent in 2012, compared with 2.5 percent nationwide. And median household income in Ohio was $44,375 in 2012, compared with $51,017 for the U.S.

For Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, the ideal jobs-focused message would include a plug for increasing the minimum wage, extending lapsed unemployment benefits and revving up American manufacturing.

Portman said he hopes Obama will use Tuesday’s speech to signal a new openness to spending cuts and deficit reduction.

Noting that Congress soon will face another vote to increase the nation’s borrowing authority, Portman said Tuesday’s speech offers “a great opportunity for the president to say, ‘OK, while we’re extending the debt limit ... I will engage with Congress on how to deal with the underlying problem, which is the record level of debt.’”

Kaptur said she hopes Obama will propose major new investments in infrastructure.

“Everyone knows that the infrastructure of this country is crumbling, whether it’s airports, whether it’s our ports, whether it’s our roads after this rough winter,” she said. Increased spending to modernize the country’s highways, sewers and parks would “put a whole lot of people to work” and make the U.S. more competitive, she said.

Whether the president’s speech will help bridge these differences — or exacerbate them — is an open question. But Obama is sure to hit on the Democrats’ election-year theme of income and wealth inequality with the kinds of proposals that Brown outlined — particularly raising the minimum wage.

That’s likely to be a nonstarter in the GOP-controlled House.

“When you mess around with the minimum wage, you actually create job losses, and I’m not sure anyone wants more job losses in this country,” Rep. Steve Stivers, R-Columbus, said.

Wenstrup echoed that argument and said he’d rather hear Obama express a willingness to move forward with the Keystone XL Pipeline, which would carry crude oil from Canada to the Gulf Coast and which the GOP says would create good jobs. That’s not likely to be high on Obama’s priority list, as he and other Democrats have expressed concerns about the possible environmental effect of the project.

Stivers said the president’s real challenge Tuesday — more than addressing any single issue — is to help break the gridlock that has gripped Washington, D.C., in recent years. He wants Obama to acknowledge he’s operating in an era of divided government and to promise he’ll make more of an effort to reach out to congressional Republicans.

“What I’d like to hear from him is a plan about how he’s going to work together with Congress on key issues,” Stivers said.

For example, he said, a focus on raising the minimum wage will be seen by the GOP as a partisan proposal, not as a real solution to fixing the economy. The same goes for any push Obama makes to renew unemployment benefits — unless it comes with a pledge to fix current federal job training programs.

“There are ways to meet in the middle on that and for him to get what he wants, but it has to be about building an off-ramp (from unemployment benefits) to a job,” Stivers said.

In the face of congressional paralysis on some of his key priorities, Obama has recently signaled that he will use his executive powers more aggressively than he has in the past.

“I’ve got a pen to take executive actions where Congress won’t, and I’ve got a telephone to rally folks around the country on this mission,” Obama said recently.

That message has irked some lawmakers, particularly Republicans who say Obama is trying to bypass them in the policymaking process.

“It’s almost like Congress is an annoyance,” Rep. Pat Tiberi, R-Genoa Township, said.

He said the president will not accomplish much if he pushes that approach. He pointed to one priority that both parties support: overhauling the loophole-ridden tax code. That won’t pass Congress without presidential leadership, Tiberi said.

More than anything Obama says in Tuesday’s speech, Tiberi wants to see what comes after.